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This morning, Boston’s bad boys Aerosmith hit L.A. for a press conference to announce their upcoming “Global Warming” tour. Singer Steven Tyler, guitarist Joe Perry, bassist Tom Hamilton and drummer Joey Kramer looked comfortable with each other (a relief to fans, after a well documented schism between Tyler and the rest of the group), and talked about the tour, American Idol and, of course, hamsters. (Guitarist Brad Whitford wasn’t present because he is in Kansas City on the Experience Hendrix tour, alongside Jimi Hendrix bassist Billy Cox, Chris Layton of Double Trouble and Taj Majal, among others).

The “Global Warming” tour will make its way through 18 markets in the U.S. Tyler explained the tour’s name: “We’ve been setting fires and putting them out our whole career… so we just like to light fires under people’s asses and what better title than ‘Global Warming.’ Everyone’s been dancing around the tribal fires of rock and roll forever.” Tom Hamilton puts it more simply: he says Aerosmith is “Bringing heat to the people.”

Cheap Trick will open on the first leg of the tour, and Hamilton points out that “They’re one of those bands where you kind of forget how many great songs they have. So when you come to a show and hear them they say ‘Oh yeah, those are the guys that do that song, right!’ It’s just going to be one after another of really great songs.”

One question that was on the minds of many of the fans, and the press: when will the band release a new record (their last new release was 2004’s Honkin’ On Bobo, which was mostly covers; their last album of new material was 2001’s Just Push Play). The band said that there are two more songs left to complete before mixing on the new album begins. Tyler assured fans that “it’s going to be stupid good.” They said the album should be out in three months.

The band joked about how “totally impossible” their frontman is to work with now that he’s on American Idol. The event ended with a discussion of the most unusual thing thrown onto their stage over the years. Hamilton recounted both when a hamster was thrown on stage and then another incident when a prosthetic leg made its way up and ended up decorating the drum riser for the remainder of the show.

Tyler ended the conference assuring Aerosmith fans that “We will not let you down.”